


Just please don't say no

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Getting Together, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Snapshots, i have a midterm tomorrow and should be studying but!! holsom waits for no one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 04:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17994539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: In the dark, beneath the streetlights, Adam shines so bright he’s hard to look at.His hair’s still damp from showering after practice and it reflects the light in a lazy haze. Justin fights down a need to touch his hair, to feel how soft it gets when Adam borrows his conditioner, to see, just once, how his hands look in his hair when it’s just the two of them. He wants it so badly he’s hungry for it. Adam laughs at something he’s saying about Cheers and Justin can’t look at him head on like this. He watches water droplets slide down Adam’s neck and disappear into the collar of his sweatshirt.__________________________Holsom, during the course of one night. Ransom's POV.





	Just please don't say no

________________________

 

In the dark, beneath the streetlights, Adam shines so bright he’s hard to look at.

His hair’s still damp from showering after practice and it reflects the light in a lazy haze. Justin fights down a need to touch his hair, to feel how soft it gets when Adam borrows his conditioner, to see, just once, how his hands look in his hair when it’s just the two of them. He wants it so badly he’s hungry for it. Adam laughs at something he’s saying about _Cheers_ and Justin can’t look at him head on like this. He watches water droplets slide down Adam’s neck and disappear into the collar of his sweatshirt.

“—okay, Ransy?”

Adam pokes his side with his stick. Justin startles, adjusts the way the strap of his hockey bag rests on his shoulder.

“Wha—? Oh, sorry,” Justin says. His heart is going so fast; he dearly hopes Adam couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “Zoned out.”

Adam sucks on his bottom lip and says something and this is so unfair, because Justin wants so much to know what that would feel like. Adam in his arms and under his fingers and in his mouth. He stares up at the next streetlight to stop himself from fantasizing.

“You’re really out of it, huh?” Adam says a few seconds later, eyebrows raised. He looks almost uncertain, but that could be just the fact that they’re in shadow now.

Justin shrugs, a little helpless, and says, “It’s been a long day. Long practice. I’m ready for bed, brah.”

They’re almost at the Haus. He can see it from here, he can make it, they’ll be fine.

“Me too man,” Adam says. He claps Justin on the shoulder and squeezes and Justin’s about to die, going to keel over in the middle of Jason Street from a deadly combination of tiredness and the fucking light in Adam’s fucking hair and this sudden closeness. “We’re nearly there, we can go to bed in a few min.”

He says, “Why the fuck did you abbreviate ‘minute?’” to keep from thinking of them in bed together, and Adam responds by making a face before going on a rant about how important abbreviations are to society.

Justin’s only half listening by the time they reach the Haus. Someone left the light on on the porch, and it glimmers soft in Adam’s eyes when Justin catches him looking at him.

____________

 

They’ve fallen asleep together before. It’s always been something of a disaster: after kegsters with sweat-soaked shirts or tub juice stained pants and booze on their breaths; during one of Adam’s Netflix binges that he insists on doing in Justin’s bed to “keep you company, Rans, you can only study bio for so long, sometimes you need some sitcoms;” Justin sleepwalking up the steps after movie nights and falling onto Adam’s bed without asking, Adam curling around him; before getting ready for the day, when Justin slides out of bed and yawns loudly, and Adam snags his arm and sleepily pulls him toward his bunk to keep him from turning on any lights. Elbows pressed to stomachs and knees under knees and shoulders numb from someone lying on them. They don’t fit comfortably, and yet.

He thinks about this while he brushes his teeth. Adam’s in the basement hanging up their gear to dry — he’d taken one look at Justin’s face and sent him up to get ready for bed — and Justin’s thinking about falling asleep with him. About whether or not it’s honest to say he’s too tired to climb the ladder, and whether he cares if it’s honest or not, and what Adam might say if he found Justin in his bed. They don’t always talk about it after they wake up; now and then one or both of them has morning wood, and it’s awkward enough that they have an unspoken agreement not to mention it.

Footsteps on the stairs. Justin spits and rinses his mouth, turning in time to see Adam lean against the door. This is unfair too, how good he looks next to peeling paint. He left his sweatshirt somewhere and is in a t-shirt Justin thinks is referencing Harry Potter and he looks so familiar and comfortable that it’s almost too much.

Even here, in their cracked and cobwedded bathroom lights, Adam’s gleaming. He’s just taken a sip of water, but Justin’s mouth is dry.

“I got you next to the heater,” Adam says softly. Justin doesn’t think he’s imagining the way Adam’s eyes flit over him, or the way they rest at his mouth. “Here, you have—” Adam points to his own mouth in a vague, distracted way. “Um.”

There’s a mirror behind him, he could just — could just turn around, see for himself, but —

“Where is it?” Justin asks, and his voice sounds hoarse even to his own ears. Strained, almost. Maybe slightly desperate. His wants clamor to be spoken.

Adam takes a step then, and another, and then they’re face to face in the bathroom.

Justin holds his breath. He thinks, maybe, Adam is too.

“Here,” Adam whispers. He lightly cups Justin’s cheek with his hand and, with his thumb, brushes something from the side of his top lip. “Toothpaste.” His fingers flutter like Adam wants to keep touching Justin’s face. Justin feels the loss when Adam lowers his hand.

He releases his breath. “Thanks,” he says, at the same time Adam says, “Sleep with me tonight.”

Justin’s heart about stops. _“What?”_

“I just — I mean—” Adam goes bright red as Justin stares at him. “It’s late, and you’re tired, and I sleep better with you. Even though you kick in your sleep.”

“Once,” Justin says. He takes a careful, measured inhale. “That was once, and you snore, Holtzy, like. So badly.”

“You’re a blanket hog.”

Justin smiles slightly. “Cold feet.”

“Always the little spoon,” Adam says, adopting a long-suffering expression.

“You talk in your sleep,” Justin says archly.

“Constantly rolling over.”

“You _sing_ in your—”

“Fall asleep with me tonight,” Adam interrupts softly. He crosses his arms like he’s afraid of the response, like he’s making himself smaller just in case. “You can say no, if you don’t want to. But please — just please don’t say no.”

There is so, so much to say. It comes down to this: Justin doesn’t ever want to see him hold himself like this again. It comes down to this: they don’t talk about falling asleep together, and Justin wants to, and Adam is talking about it. It comes down to this: Adam in the bathroom, staring into the sink like he’s said something that meant a lot to say.

They’ve known each other for three years. Justin knows how he sounds when he’s blurting something out on an impulse and when he’s saying something abruptly, faux casually, because he’s been turning it over and over in his mind.

It comes down to this: he doesn’t want to say no.

Justin whispers, “Okay,” and Adam makes a noise like _oh._

He looks softer, now. He relaxes his arms and tilts his head to the side like he’s just heard his favorite song and Justin made him look like that, like everything just settled into how it’s supposed to be, like things just needed those two syllables to fall back into place. _Okay._ Justin made him look like that.

Slowly, so he has time to draw back, Justin reaches up. Adam closes his eyes again and lets Justin card his fingers through his hair.

____________

 

In the dark, beneath the faint light from Justin’s computer charger, Adam glows in Justin’s arms.

They still don’t fit properly. His right arm is tingling almost painfully underneath Adam’s head, and Adam has his cold feet on his calves, and he has more than seventy-five percent of the blankets. By all rights they’d be more comfortable in their own beds, but —

“Hey, Justin?” Adam whispers. He laces their fingers together.

But _this._ Justin squeezes his hand. “Yeah?”

“I think—” he breaks off in a yawn, and rolls over to face him. Justin touches his eyebrows, his nose, his mouth; Adam smiles under his fingers. “I’m sort of, kind of, maybe very much in love with you. Just thought, you know. Maybe you should know.”

Justin leans forward and they’re kissing as easy as anything, their legs tangled up together, hands gentle on waists and faces and necks. And then they aren’t, because it’s late and because Adam whispers that his knee hurts and Justin replies that his feet are too cold on his calves.

And then Adam tells him again, so he has to kiss him again, and this time they stop so Justin can say, “I’m in love with you, too.”

There’s a moment where they just look at each other. Justin tugs on a strand of Adam’s hair softly. “I never knew it could be this easy,” he whispers.

Adam kisses his fingers, then his elbow, then his shoulder. He says, “I’ve wanted to tell you that for so long.”

Justin says, “You could tell me again, if you wanted,” and Adam laughs.

Then he does one better, and shows him.

____________

 

They talk about it in the morning. Adam is sun drenched in sunrise and Justin’s about to say this when Adam says sleepily, “You look so beautiful here. You’re shining, Ransy. You always do.”

Justin says, “Oh,” because he can’t think of words to describe the feeling in his chest, and something needs to be said.

They talk about it and their plans and what they’re happy with and what they’d like to do with each other and they do some of it. And then afterward, how sleepy they both are, and how uncomfortable it was without blankets. Adam’s saying this as he throws his arm over Justin’s waist, though, so he’s not too concerned. 

Adam presses feathery kisses to his back and neck and just under his ear. “I’m tempted to go back to sleep, regardless of how much you move around,” he says. He punctuates each word with a kiss. 

Justin yawns. “You have the right idea.”

”Don’t I always?”

He can’t see him, but Justin’s positive Adam’s smiling. He says, “This was a good one, at least.”

”Maybe we should do it again sometime,” Adam replies sleepily. 

Justin closes his eyes, pulling the covers up around them. “Sounds like a date.”

This time he knows Adam’s smiling. He kisses a smile right between Justin’s shoulder blades. “The best kind. Easy as anything,” Adam whispers now. 

There’s a drool mark on Justin’s shirt from before. Adam has a red mark on his face from Justin’s shoulder, and Justin’s slightly uncomfortable because his neck is at a somewhat awkward angle, and there’s a draft from somewhere getting under the blankets. It’s not a perfect fit, Justin thinks as he closes his eyes. Not perfect, but it’ll do. Easy as anything. 

**____________**

 

It’s the best sleep he’s ever had. 

________________________

**Author's Note:**

> I have a midterm tomorrow and I'm stressin but my brain said _Holsom_ and who am I to argue
> 
> I wrote this at like. 11PM - 1AM so please excuse any errors
> 
> Thanks for reading!! :) I'm on tumblr, [ come say hi <3](http://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com)


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